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June editors edged to 7-year low but strong

The June editor-activity data (in http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm) still shows strong levels of editing, similar to recent months, so any major change in July levels would be surprising (such as the impact of VisualEditor). However, it is sad to see the June levels continue to erode, slightly, as now the lowest in about 7 years (since July 2006), but still wondering if editors are doing more in fewer edits. I plan on doing more to encourage the power users to keep going, and try to focus more MediaWiki software updates (+templates or Lua modules) on their concerns, with the developers in WMF platform engineering. Here are the June 2013 editor-activity levels:

Edits ≥	1	3	5	10	25	100	250	1000	2500	10000
Jun 2013	104,758	46,106	30,978	18,206	9143	3233	1366	225	50	6
May 2013	114,333	50,140	33,193	19,164	9513	3322	1453	246	52	3
Apr 2013	114,142	50,326	33,494	19,430	9583	3301	1446	240	53	4
Jun 2012	108,492	48,845	32,407	18,711	9307	3249	1375	220	53	3
May 2012	112,531	50,846	33,585	19,387	9622	3358	1484	237	54	2

Adjusted for the 30/31-day difference, the June 2013 levels are mostly ~1%-4% lower than May 2013, so it's not like a 10% drop or such. I guess we should also compare the June editor-activity levels for the other target languages of VE, when released today: German (de), Spanish (es), French (fr), Hebrew (he), Italian (it), Dutch (nl), Polish (pl), Russian (ru) and Swedish (sv). The Bugzilla entry for non-English Misplaced Pages issues with VisualEditor is: Template:Bugzilla. Anyway, the June 2013 data for enwiki still shows strong editor activity among the power users, although the new-editor group, of 5,654 users reaching 10 edits (down 14% since May), was the lowest in 7 years, since November 2005 gained only 3,567 new editors. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:08, 24 July, 05:11, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm a big believer in comparing things to previous year rather than previous month and the metric that I care most about is the 100+ edits/month group, so-called "very active editors" in the official jargon. June 2012 showed 3249 very active editors in English-Misplaced Pages, compared to 3233 in June 2013. That drop is 0.5%, which we can call "more or less flat." The same stats for May are 3358 and 3322, respectively, which is a drop of 1.1%, which we would call a "slight drop." New article creation is off about 10% for June 2013 vs. June 2012, which is more concerning. Carrite (talk) 02:43, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Almost all editor-activity levels are lower for June 2013, and the lowest in 7 years, even though only slightly below prior years for 100+ edits/month. I have added June/May 2012 into the above table, to compare the lower counts at the other edit-levels, such as 25+ edits/month. There are concerns now at almost every level. -Wikid77 (talk) 05:11, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree year-on-year is more useful - June is a big exam/holiday month and the start of the usual summer vacation fall-off. All levels above 100 epm show tiny declines yoy, or rises. A fall off in new article creation a) is probably explained by the forest of barbed wire AFC now represents and b) doesn't bother me at all as (sweeping generalization) we have far too many new articles & should be concentrating on improving the old ones. Maybe we've finally run out of Kentucky politicians, US naval transport ships etc. Johnbod (talk) 11:21, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

There is strong evidence that more than than half of anonymous IP editors are as sophisticated and prolific as "active" registered editors. Therefore, trying to count people is foolish and we should start concentrating on bytes added to articlespace per time period instead. 97.122.187.243 (talk) 08:55, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

If there is any evidence whatsoever (let alone strong evidence) that "more than than half of anonymous IP editors are as sophisticated and prolific as 'active' registered editors," I certainly am not aware of it. Can you point me to such evidence? I believe that quite the contrary is true, that "more than than half of Misplaced Pages vandalism and problematic edits are the product of anonymous IP editors," but I admit that this is an impressionistic observation based on perusal of various edit histories over time. I'm sure vandal fighters would have a more definite opinion on this. There are certainly many anonymous IP editors who are as productive and sophisticated as is typical for (mostly anonymous) named accounts, don't get me wrong, but "more than half?" That I doubt. How many? That's a question resolvable by empirical evidence... If we toss aside the count of (mostly anonymous) named accounts contributing content, the count of new articles is way off from the previous year's pace, which may be considered a cause for grave concern. I'm not really all that stressed about that metric myself, since this would be a natural tendency of a maturing encyclopedia. Topics get "taken." Carrite (talk) 15:34, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes there is, but don't take my word for it. Click recent changes and do your own tally. Count how many IPs are adding templates or whatever measure of sophistication you prefer. It's an easy script. 97.124.165.149 (talk) 16:28, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

If you don't mind, I'll wait to take you up on that. Other "regular editors" might be doing what I did and playing with VE logged out as an IP, having shut it down for their account. I'll keep my eyes open watching edit histories... Carrite (talk) 20:44, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

• @Wikid77. Do the "active editing" stats include IPs or just logged in edits? Carrite (talk) 20:44, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Those are username-only stats in TablesWikipediaEN.htm, while the Bot edits are in separate columns (see German: http://stats.wikimedia.org/DE/TablesWikipediaDE.htm, "Mai" is May), and so-called "new" users must reach 10 edits, but the IP users are estimated at 2/3 one-half (54% in 2013) of the general username activity levels. However, while usernames might include a few wp:SOCK#Legit alternate usernames, the IP users are often rotating as dynamic IP addresses (often 255 numbers, or more for large ISP companies, among billions of IP numbers). The IP user who created articles "Édith Piaf" and "Maria Callas" was over 100 other IPs, looking like "100 newcomers" in general. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:17, 26 July, 05:25, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Personal and Moral Rights?

Sorry; if I’m trying to bring your attention again to Commons.

We have a discussion on the moral rights of the photographers and the personal rights of the subjects; two different topics and rarely come together as in the case of your portrait where you are the subject and original author as per the work for hire contract. And, that video is showcasing the original Jimmy Wales portrait several times from the beginning to end and finally attributes to it with courtesy notes. So it is derivative work per http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/101, "a derogatory action in relation to the Original Work which would be prejudicial to the Original Author's honor or reputation" (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode 4d); a clear violation of moral rights of the Original Author.

Further, : "Creative Commons licenses do not waive or otherwise affect rights of privacy or publicity to the extent they apply. If you have created a work or wish to use a work that might in some way implicate these rights, you may need to obtain permission from the individuals whose rights may be affected." So that video is a clear violation of the privacy/personal rights of the subject too.

While discussing these matters as a generic concern that seriously affects the photographic community in Commons; we found the current policies of Commons are desperately inadequate for our safety and to protect our reputation. At Commons:Commons:Non-copyright_restrictions, Commons is trying to impose "the reusers of Commons-hosted media to ensure that they do not violate any non-copyright restrictions that apply to the media." It’s OK; Commons can’t take the responsibility of the damages, the reusers make outside it. But it is not good if Commons itself allow and encourage hosting of such works infringing the Non-copyright-restrictions (like moral rights of the authors and personal rights of the subjects).

While looking for a solution, some people suggested that "I strongly agree with you on Commons defending people's dignity through policy but think this must come first through a stronger statement from the WMF. They are legally prevented from direct editorial control (that would make them responsible and so liable to be sued for what content we have) but they can be much more specific about what they want wrt scope and moral issues."

We noticed the resolution http://wikimediafoundation.org/Resolution:Images_of_identifiable_people; but it seems only related to privacy rights; we can’t see any resolution related to photographers' moral rights. There is some discussion is going on at commons:Commons_talk:Photographs_of_identifiable_people/Update_2013/Moral_issues under commons:Commons_talk:Project_scope/Update_2013/Stage_2 on the base of it; but I can’t see much developments.

Could you express your stand on these matters; and do you promise us that you make any attempt to protect our rights. I/We feel it is dangerous to make further media contributions in a community which encourages making and hosting derivative works of our own works to humiliate us. JKadavoor Jee 08:54, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

My first comment is that it is absolutely untrue that the WMF is "legally prevented from direct editorial control (that would mke them responsible and so liable to be sued for what content we have)". This is a frequent and unfortunate misunderstanding of the law. Section 230 is explicitly designed to allow for direct editorial control without undue risk. The Foundation can exercise direct editorial control without thereby becoming liable for what other people do. This is important.

Second, I think that the commons community has gone down a very sad and disappointing path with respect to ethical matters. My views on this are not new, and are well known. Our project is a grand humanitarian effort. That it has been hijacked by people who do not share our values is something that needs to be fixed.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:53, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Jimmy for your reply. "I think that the commons community has gone down a very sad and disappointing path with respect to ethical matters. My views on this are not new, and are well known. Our project is a grand humanitarian effort. That it has been hijacked by people who do not share our values is something that needs to be fixed." So Jimmy; can we expect a WMF attempt to ‘’fix’’ Commons? If so; I request you to do it immediately. Otherwise Commons will end up as a cemetery of some people you mentioned above and their bot-transferred xxx contents from Flickr or similar sites.

Or you mean, that it is the responsibility of the common community is to fix their issue? If so; I've little hope. We already discussed this matter with Russavia in detail; but he refused to take any responsibility for his rude behaviour. In that discussion, Slaunger (one who started the commons:COM:VI projects) finally offered him three solutions: "If you do not agree with the resolution, you have three options. 1) Work with the WMF and try to make them change their minds, or introduce some notability exceptions in their resolution, which it appears you think would be reasonable. 2) Pretend you love it and be loyal to it, although you really do not entirely agree. This is an entirely normal and pragmatic decision for many individuals being a member of an organization, to bend a little to adapt to the norms, because, overall, you can see that in the big picture values of the organization are aligned with your own. 3) You can come to the conclusion that your own view on the resolution differs so much, that you cannot see yourself as part of it - and resign from a current role."

So I request you to once again to bring this matter to the attention of WMF, make a resolution or something to force Commons make enough policies to protect our rights as a photographer and our commitments to our subjects. I’ve not much knowledge about the WMF hierarchies; don’t know whether this is the right place to make such a request. (I’m living in the opposite side of the world, in a remote place with frequent electricity and Internet connectivity problems; so this late response. Sorry.) JKadavoor Jee 05:15, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I am just one board member on this issue. I will continue to call this to the attention of the board and staff, but I need help from the community to illustrate that this is a problem that concerns many of us.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:37, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Jimmy; we’ll try our best from our side, because it is a real concern for us as socially committed photographers. JKadavoor Jee 07:22, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Apologies for my erroneous remark concerning editorial control. My limited non-lawyer understanding is perhaps more influenced by UK/EU law see paragraphs 42-47. To me this means (if Commons was based in the EU) that staff could not participate in deletion discussions (especially voting keep) without making themselves liable for the content. Indeed, I am concerned myself about participating in deletion discussions in case that makes me liable for any content I say should be kept. Am I misreading the EU law or is the US law quite different?

On the ethical issues I think have a situation where Commons admins think they own the site and a crowdsourced editorial policy and decision-making fails when not given enough direction from above. Too often the deletion discussions rely on an mechanical interpretation of what freedoms are allowed by law or existing policy (which is generous) rather than any consideration of ethics or of not being a jerk or a creep (see Autumn leaf discussion below). -- Colin° 07:39, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

• I think that the commons community has gone down a very sad and disappointing path with respect to ethical matters. I fully agree, but the real question is: what do you plan to do about it? Saying that commons should change is all good and dandy, but it changes nothing. It's become overly clear that we mere editors can't do anything about it, because the porn brigade has managed to get some of its members elected to positions of power (which means that they, basically, get to close deletion discussions and may even restrict those who try to interfere with their porn stash). This means that it's time you and the foundation put your money where your collective mouth is and start doing something other than simply repeating commons is broken. Otherwise, nothing will ever change. Salvio 11:32, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Jimmy already offered "I will continue to call this to the attention of the board and staff" and requested moral support "from the community". I think this includes the other matter you mentioned too. :) JKadavoor Jee 12:25, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Bring it on, guys. And Jimbo, thanks for your concerns with the matter as well. ✉→Arctic Kangaroo←✎ 14:12, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion requests/File:Doleschallia bisaltide bisaltide (Autumn Leaf) - male, January 2013, Singapore.jpg

Hey Jimmy, I hope you can empathise with me on this. Jkadavoor's talking about this because of me. I'm getting irritated and very disturbed with my image being used, and Commons as well as Commoners' lack of respect (especially to contributors) and morals. I will be sending an email to you within the next 2 hours. Please keep your inbox checked. Cheers. ✉→Arctic Kangaroo←✎ 13:55, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, Arctic Kangaroo; my comments here are no way related to your issue; it is only a simple matter that can be resolved with sympathy and empathy, considering your younger age. I too have younger brothers. (My/our topic is well described here and somewhat here.) JKadavoor Jee 05:19, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Talking about poor morals, and no respect towards fellow contributors, I'm very disappointed to say that Geo Swan is a fellow en.wiki contributor who is part of that group on Commons. He's also carried his very good values with him when he works on en.wiki. Perhaps, you also want to read the discussion conversation argument that I had with him. diff ✉→Arctic Kangaroo←✎ 14:02, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

About User:Arctic Kangaroo above, Jimbo don't be swayed too much by that.If you have a look you find that s/he's just complaining because s/he suddenly changed mind about the copyright of some pictures of butterflies. That is obviously an impossible-to-honour request -if it was, I could revoke my contributions from Misplaced Pages at any moment, and WP should be obliged to comply. The whole point of free licences is that of giving up some of your intellectual "property" rights on a work. If the creator still holds the power to revoke, then s/he holds all power on the work, and thus it is not free anymore. We've banned users that refused to comply with license requirements, and rightly so. -- cyclopia 14:26, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

It's all related. And Cyclopia, I haven't sent the email. Inside there will be whatever reasons I have to say. Cheers. ✉→Arctic Kangaroo←✎ 14:27, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

• In the interests of permanence I added a diff after Arctic Kangaroo's link to my talk page. Geo Swan (talk) 15:44, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

✉→Arctic Kangaroo←✎ 15:42, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

• I've noted here that Arctic Kangaroo asked in all good faith about how to upload the image without others using it, he was given very very bad advice here on Misplaced Pages as part of a formal adoption process, and appears to have followed that advice in good faith. I'm seeing this issue as being largely the result of that very very bad advice, not a result of any bad faith or incompetence on Arctic Kangaroo or Geo Swan's part. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 17:01, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

I think this is very relevant. Cyclopedia, your concern that if we allow one user to delete a file based on a change of heart, we have to do so in all cases, is simply not true. We can and should make exceptions for a wide variety of reasons. In the vast majority of cases, one picture is worth being jerks about it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:41, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

If there is evidence he followed bad advice, a case could be made for him not having actually understood the CC requirements, thus invalidating it for his pictures. This is fine by me: he simply did not consent to a contract, de facto. So no exceptions to be made. Then I apologize, and this makes it clear we have to be clearer on what releasing with CC means during upload.

However what I worry is exactly the "make exceptions" issue. If you summarily understand the CC license, then there cannot be turning back, because to do so means the author has full power on the work: and that undermines the whole concept of a free license. -- cyclopia 09:08, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

That the CC licence is irrevocable does to compel us to irrevocably host the image or irrevocably use it on Misplaced Pages projects. We can choose to remove the file from our servers as a result of community discussion. Too often the slippery slope fallacy is used to justify taking a hard-line position. This makes it very hard to remove material because it is the right thing to do rather than because some law or policy absolutely requires it. That attitude needs to change. Commons is not compelled to host anything. An example of a user taking a hard-line principles-first approach is Geo Swan's discussion with AK (linked above). Geo Swan's uploading of AK's picture to his Flickr account not only breaks Flickr's terms and conditions but is a really nasty way of proving one's point. Colin° 10:44, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

It's not a slippery slope argument, because one case where we guarantee this is enough to formally dismantle the whole concept of a free license. Free license = you do NOT have anymore full rights on the work, only those preserved by the license. There is no turning back. This case may be an exception only because the uploader did not actually know about what the license meant really in advance, and it perhaps can be proven by the discussion linked by Demiurge1000 above. But if there is no sound proof of that, going back is a no-no. Even doing it once would immediately make all free licensing moot: it would show they have no bearing whatsoever anymore, even if nobody else asks to revoke them again. Which, however, will most likely happen, if we create precedents. This may look like a one-time mistakes-happen let's-do-the-decent-thing occurrence, but it is instead deeply ruinous. It threatens the very foundation of the concept of a free licence. Don't underestimate that. -- cyclopia 12:37, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Where is the requirement or policy on Commons that says that because the image has a CC licence, Commons must host it. Too many admins and others have got deletion review upside down when they assume that because there is no policy that says we have to delete it it follows that we have to keep it. Time and again you see deletion closures saying that if the image has a valid licence and is in use then and doesn't clearly break COM:IDENT then there is no valid argument to delete. This is wrong. While the consensus at a deletion discussion shouldn't be allowed to decided to keep an image that is illegal or against policy, it must surely be allowed to decide to delete an image that is legal and complies with policy. -- Colin° 13:19, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)There may be remote edge cases in which a deletion may be required despite policy compliance. In any other case, yes, it does follow that we have to keep it, otherwise policies etc. are just nonsense. For sure "uploader changed her mind" cannot be a reason to do so, because it would imply the uploader maintains more control on the image than the one allowed by the CC license. If an image is free once, is free forever. This must be as crystal clear and iron strong as possible. -- cyclopia 13:29, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

• Deletion from Commons does not change the license. It changes how easily the image spreads (which is still desirable for many editors) — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:36, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

• Technically correct. But a deletion from Commons on request (with perhaps the exception of a "dammit, I uploaded the wrong image, sorry" request a few minutes after upload, or similar obvious mistakes) still acknowledges exceptional control by the uploader. This makes the image "free", but on a leash. Which is not very free. -- cyclopia 13:49, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Cyclopia, I agree with your arguments; which are part of the free concepts. But I don’t think raising them on every courtesy deletion request is very helpful. This is not a case like a long time established user who wants all his files get deleted; when he changed his mind. He has only a few media contributions so far, all are very recent, and all uploaded through en:wiki upload wizard. He may not even notice that they are uploaded to Commons; not to Misplaced Pages. His first visit to Commons (other than a few POY votes) was when I made a notice on his talk page regarding the FPC nomination. JKadavoor Jee 13:43, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Cyclopia, you are confusing the requirement to relicense the work under the same CC terms when copying, modification, or redistribution occur, with the fictitious notion that the CC license compels Commons to redistribute the work in perpetuity. Commons is not obligated to continue publishing works; it is only compelled to publish them under the same license terms if it does publish them at all. The decision whether or not to publish a work licensed under CC can be made for any number of reasons (one of which might be that the author does not want the work to be published at Commons), and that decision can be changed anytime; what cannot be done is revocation of downstream users' rights to continue to copy, modify, and redistribute under CC terms once they received the work from Commons. alanyst 13:49, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I am perfectly aware of this distinction. This doesn't change that, de facto, complying to such a request implies that, practically, we give the uploader a level of control that is not present in the license. We may well decide to delete something free from Commons, but setting a precedent where such a decision is made only because of a request of the uploader without extremly good reasons is noxious, because of what it implies -namely, that the uploader has a special level of control on the work. That's exactly the opposite of free content, regardless of how technically it still complies. -- cyclopia 14:09, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Absurd. Imagine that when the person uploaded the file to Commons, they also gave a copy to a friend under the same CC terms, and when they asked Commons to delete it, they also asked their friend to do so. Commons and the friend are equally free to accede to the uploader's request or to ignore it, and enjoy the exact same degree of control in their decisions. Commons does not need to be bound by precedent any more than the friend does the next time someone gives them a CC-licensed file. alanyst 14:28, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

What seems absurd to me is your analogy. A personal friend is not a public, open website hosting thousands of images that makes a point of being a repository of informative free content, run by a consensus-driven community, where anybody can see what happened before and what precedents have been set. -- cyclopia 14:45, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. And you believe we should place the free-content crusade before all else. Some of us believe there are other things equally important, such as editorial and publishing discretion, and moral concerns, even. I'd rather 'anybody' could see that we did the common sense, human, decent thing after due consideration. You never know, that might encourage more people to donate more content to a responsible host. I doubt the two points of view will ever mesh easily, so it seems tedious for us to repeat it all again, no? We can does not mean we must. Begoon  15:01, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, no, it's not matter of a crusade. Nor it is a matter of "we can therefore we must". It's a matter of what does free content mean. In other words, things have to be clear for users of Commons. In the moment I see an image on Commons, and it is obviously compliant with policies, I expect to be able to use it in any way that is compliant with the requirements of the license. That's what free content means: it is something that we can relink, share, reuse, rebuild upon, while keeping only a minimum of clear obligations, because the author explicitly relinquished (most of) her/his rights on the image, and cannot complain if it happens that he does not like what I do with it. If, instead, in any moment the copyright owner can decide to change his mind, then it has never been free: it was only "on loan", something like "hey, I'll give it to you to play until I decide it's fine". And so we jeopardize the whole concept of free content. It's not matter of crusade, I am not a free-culture-Taliban, frankly (heh, I worked for closed-source companies). But if we say that is free, then it has to be free, not "free unless uploader has a change of mind". And it has also nothing to do with "decency" and "common sense". Apart from the fact that there is no such thing as "common sense", because what is "common" in my culture can be far from common in yours, there is nothing in the notion of "decency" that requires us to abide to every whim of uploaders. If there is some serious privacy or real-life complain, then decency may play a part. It doesn't with contributors that want to pick up the ball and suddenly decide that we can't play anymore - it's not their ball anymore, once under CC. I hope I made myself more clear. -- cyclopia 15:33, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

More clear, no. But you used a lot of words. I already knew where you stood. I disagree. Begoon  15:42, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Given that you said that I "believe we should place the free-content crusade before all else" -which is nonsense- I'd say that no, you know really nothing of where I stand. So you're disagreeing with some figment of your imagination, not with me. -- cyclopia 15:47, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't know much about Commons. You say we should not delete a file from our collection if the uploader has simply changed their mind. But is there a WMF directive or Commons policy that forbids it (that says we may not)? If I add a page to Misplaced Pages that no one else has added to and ask that it be removed, that will usually happen without any fuss. I'm fairly sure the licensing and ethical issues are much the same, so I'd be curious to know if the two projects' written policies are different on this issue. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 16:13, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

You're correct about the articles removal on WP. It should not happen as well. It is a shame it does. -- cyclopia 17:29, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I respect your right to the view that this kind of thing shouldn't happen, and your right to argue from that position. But I'm asking you, may it happen. I'm asking if it is permitted by Commons policy for a file to be deleted for no other reason than that the uploader requests it? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 18:25, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

To clear up, Commons has a policy that we may delete images whose uploaders have requested deletion. We do it fairly frequently actually. But we generally draw the line if the image is used on other projects. -mattbuck (Talk) 16:36, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I know you sometimes delete files upon the uploader's request but the only such deletion discussions I've seen have required the uploader to justify it, beyond simply requesting it. So to be very clear, if the file isn't being used on another project and the uploader gives no reason, or simply says they've changed their mind, policy permits deletion and the uploader's wish is usually respected, without them having to provide any rationale. Have I got that right? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 18:25, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

It does depend on the image in question, and timing. If you ask for deletion after a few days or a month or so, then it's more likely to be granted. If the image is something that is easily replaceable and/or low quality, again, more likely to be granted. But courtesy deletions are not generally granted if the image is in (mainspace) use, and especially not if it's widely used. -mattbuck (Talk) 22:11, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I've had contact by email with Arctic Kangaroo and he's apparently well under the age of legal competence for this sort of thing anyway. So there's a good case to be made that the license has not actually been granted, period, despite whatever checkbox he may have clicked. For me, this seals it, and I've asked Wikimedia Legal to comment on the issue.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:51, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Jimbo. That's encouraging. I do a lot of image work for the project, and it's important to me that there is some common sense involved somewhere along the line. It really is important, and it's good to see. Cheers. Begoon  19:01, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Jimbo, thanks for your understanding. I will be sending you another email, hopefully by tonight (UTC+8). Cheers. ✉→Arctic Kangaroo←✎ 22:46, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorry to pour cold water on things, but if we are saying that Arctic Kangaroo is not of legal competence to release images, then they should be globally banned and all their edits on all projects revdeled (and all subsequent revisions as derivative works). There is no difference between the CC-BY-SA the user released the image under and the CC-BY-SA they released those edits under (By clicking the "Save page" button, you agree to the Terms of Use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL.), other than they don't like the consequences of that particular edit. If you're arguing from a legal standpoint, then you need to be consistent and delete everything. If you argue from a moral standpoint, then the DR was already closed as keep. -mattbuck (Talk) 23:08, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I have to agree with mattbuck here as well, it's all or nothing. _→AzaToth 00:08, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

I note that one of those giving you a hard time here has uploaded your image to a flickr account. That is contrary to the flickr terms of use

Don’t upload anything that isn't yours. This includes other people's photos, video, and/or stuff you've copied or collected from around the Internet. Accounts that consist primarily of such collections may be deleted at any time.

and flickr will delete the image from their site if you contact them. If you do so then I recommend that you go to the page and click the link at the bottom that says "report abuse". Choose "Other concerns" at the bottom of the list rather than "Someone is posting photos that I have taken ...". In the email explain that you are a minor and the person uploaded the image as a form of revenge in order to "teach you a lesson", add links to the Commons discussions where he did it. If you do it that way and emphasis the bullying aspect Geo Swann's flickr account and his 11,000 images will most likely be deleted, as Yahoo will not countenance bullying of minors. Alternatively you can click the "copyright/ip" link bottom right of the page and just get the one image deleted. John lilburne (talk) 23:27, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

• We might wish to get legal to review this; this is certainly something that has huge potential to change Wikimedia. If no one who is not of legal age has legal competence to free license their work, that would of necessity include text as well as images. That being the case, I have a hard time seeing how Wikimedia could continue to allow anyone not yet of legal age to edit anything on Wikimedia. If that were so, I'd presume it would have to lead to some sort of identity confirmation of logged in users, and the end editing by users who have not logged in. (IMO this might in the long run do more good than harm, but it certainly would be a major change.) -- Infrogmation (talk) 01:00, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree, we need legal to review the wider implications of this issue, not just the limited question of whether this file should be deleted from Commons as requested by Arctic Kangaroo (AK).

First, is it sensible to keep the image hosted on Misplaced Pages (as AK wants) if the reason for deleting it from Commons is that AK wasn't legally competent to license it freely?

Second, what should be done with other images uploaded to Misplaced Pages by AK?

Third, do we similarly need to delete AK's other edits to Misplaced Pages and other WMF wikis? If AK isn't legally competent to license images freely, would the same be true of text contributions?

Fourth, what should we do about potential future edits by AK? Are blocks on all wikis required until AK is old enough, or until we have OTRS confirmation of his parents' or guardians' agreement to freely license his contributions?

Finally, what are the implications for edits and uploads by other people, including those who we suspect may be under 18, and those for whom we have no idea (including people who aren't signed in)? --Avenue (talk) 03:54, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't presume to speak for Jimbo, but my take on it is that the only precedent we would be setting is that of having respected the wish of a contributor not to host his image any more, and taking into account that he may not have fully understood the rigidness of the terms he agreed to when uploading it. There don't seem to be any licensing implications - anyone who acquired the file under the license offered is unaffected - we just agree to not host the file any more out of consideration for the users wishes. Sure, people will cry "slippery slope", because that's the way of it here, but I think it does us no harm to be seen as responsive to a reasonable request from a good faith contributor. Opinions will, of course, differ. I wouldn't still be contributing images to this site or Commons at all if the rules had been rigidly enforced in a recent deletion discussion which I initiated (although that was more complex, with other reasons to delete), so feel free to see my point of view as "involved". Begoon  04:09, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

I'd be a lot happier granting such a request if I believed that he had good reasons for making it, that he now understood the implications of the licenses he has agreed to, and that he wouldn't be making such requests without good reason in the future. Keep in mind that this is very different from a prompt request to remove an unused image that was uploaded mistakenly. The image is used on several projects and has been promoted as an FP on both WP and Commons, after review by several editors.

But the fact that he wants us to remove the image from Commons while keeping it on Misplaced Pages seems to show that he still doesn't understand the license he applied to the image (or the aims of our movement more broadly), and that he doesn't really have good reasons for its removal. (That's not to say that there aren't good reasons, such as his being a minor, just that he didn't present them in his request.) If we do decide to delete it from Commons, it won't simply be to fulfil his request, but because of these other reasons, and I think the consequences should extend at least as far as also removing it from Misplaced Pages. I also have trouble understanding why we'd want to risk keeping AK's other uploads unless he changed his tune dramatically. If you think that means I'm crying "slippery slope", so be it.

The implications for his other contributions are messier, and I don't claim to fully understand them, but I would certainly like some legal input on the issues. I'm concerned we could create a lot of unnecessary trouble for ourselves later if we don't. --Avenue (talk) 05:38, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

he still doesn't understand the license he applied to the image - that is the issue. He doesn't understand the licence, and isn't legally competent to enter into a irrevocable agreement. In any other situation if an organisation were to maintain that a U16 was to be held to a contract there would be a page on this site about it. The concerns expressed about his other contributions are ill founded as it is highly unlikely that any of his written article work will be copyrightable. Spelling, grammar, and punctuation fixes rarely rise to the level of obtaining copyright status. I'll note in passing that Geo Swann has wisely removed the image from flickr. John lilburne (talk) 07:30, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

The comments he made here are certainly eligible for copyright. There is no substantive difference between text and images. It is my view that if we accept that (even just under Singaporean law) minors cannot release things under CC, then at the very least Arctic Kangaroo must be banned from all WMF projects, and we should probably follow suit with everyone else who may not be legally compos mentis. -mattbuck (Talk) 08:34, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

The retention of comments here and elsewhere most likely falls under fair use. They aren't being sold, they aren't being used to promote the site, the chances of anyone putting his comments onto a tea towel, or mug is remote. No the issue is with media files, and your insistence that they be kept against the wishes of a child, who clearly wanted them to be used solely on WP. It is your, and others, grasping nature that is the real problem here Matt. 62.49.31.176 (talk) 11:35, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

I think it best to wait till we get the legal answers before speculating on the consequences both for AK and other child users -- I would hope Jimbo and WMF are considering the consequences too and not just one butterfly photo. But regardless of whether the licence is valid, I think we should appreciate that children-users are more likely to misunderstand/make mistakes and so we should be more sympathetic in our handling. While AK's behaviour has made it difficult to be sympathetic (myself included), we should rise above this rather than let it anger us to being stubborn. Mattbuck mentions courtesy deletion but it appears Commons has no written policy on the matter (that I can find) -- so I suggest we consider documenting this area in the Commons deletion policy pages. Colin° 11:06, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

@Everyone in this discussion except Jimmy: My text contributions have been OK so far. It's just a misunderstanding of the whole CC thing that made my image contribution bad. Anyway, as long as I learn and fully understand any licence before uploading anything again, then it's absolutely fine right? Blocks are for prevention, not punishment. I've already promised to learn up those stuff, am I not right? Anyway, you guys don't understand the situation fully. Almost everything I need to say is stated in my email to Jimmy and you can ask him if you like to understand the full situation. Anyway, I'm never uploading anything to Commons again. You have my word on that. ✉→Arctic Kangaroo←✎ 14:18, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

This is prevention. If you are not legally competent to release images under free licences then you cannot be allowed to upload anything on Commons, and any significant textual contribution is similarly unallowable as they are under a similar licence. -mattbuck (Talk) 14:29, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

--✉→Arctic Kangaroo←✎ 14:22, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Verifiability and WebCite?

WebCite which is used for dead links required by Misplaced Pages:Verifiability is going to close.

without saving dead links Misplaced Pages:Verifiability is completely meanless!

when we got any offical solution for http://meta.wikimedia.org/WebCite ? (Idot (talk) 12:04, 25 July 2013 (UTC))

Making loud noises does not prove an argument! The closure of webcite does not make WP:V any more meaningless than it was before webcite existed. Linkrot is a problem we will always have, and will always have to deal with. Resolute 14:13, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

what we will do with dead links as do not have any alternative ways for verification of dead links?
shall we cancel WP:V as meanless rule or what?
or you just going to wait until all dead links will really die, then say "sorry guys..."? (Idot (talk) 16:07, 25 July 2013 (UTC))

Also it should be noted that the vast majority of voters supported acquisition. I was among them. We donate and we should be able to determine how Wikimedia spends our money. — kf8 17:03, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

How much more do they need to raise and by when? 97.124.165.149 (talk) 16:24, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

They need $30k by the end of year, of which 10k is already raised. Personally, I'm very disappointed by WMF spending large amounts for meaningless activities and not supporting service which stores over 300k pages for verifiability purposes. WMF could acquire WebCite or make similar service of our own, but the Foundation is occupied with its own petty projects like VE, it's a shame! --Akim Dubrow (talk) 10:19, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Future of undergraduate education

Hi Jimmy, it was amazing to hear you on BBC World Service last night. What do you think of and ? Too many MOOCs seem to achieve their "economies of scale" by removing opportunities for Q&A and other interactions which are encouraged strongly in brick and mortar situations. Many MOOCs tell the students to not email the instructor so that others can handle questions with template answers like we handle OTRS inquires. Can you imagine a brick and mortar college doing that, or telling students they weren't allowed to go to office hours? 97.124.165.149 (talk) 16:23, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

I think you're approaching the problem without sufficient nuance. There is great promise in MOOCs and good reason to think that they will be a major part of education going forward. I welcome that. At the same time, yes, of course, a badly done MOOC is badly done. That's not even close to a valid reason to reject the entire concept, nor even to have skepticism about the entire concept.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:43, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

As a related question, you had mentioned in that discussion that there were technologies that were starting to get into place to facilitate guidance and advising services that are typically available at higher ed. institutions. What sort of technologies were you referring to? I, Jethrobot (note: not a bot!) 16:50, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, without an exact quote of what I said, I'm not sure what I might have meant. That interview was done quite a little while ago. But answering the question as best I understand it, I refer back to a particularly disastrous math course I had many years ago in which the instructor was incredibly boring and had very poor English language skills. All the the supposed benefits of in-person education were lost in that case, and to pass the course I ended up watching videotapes of an award-winning teaching professor at the same university. That was many many years ago. I think a very interesting model is to have the very best (most engaging, most effective) teachers doing highly technology-enhanced lectures, with very high quality 1-1 support as needed. The ultimate question here is an empirical one: how do we stop wasting the time of students and professors? How can we increase the effectiveness and decrease the cost of education? Technology is clearly going to be a very strong component of that.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:43, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Jimbo, I totally agree with your above assessment, especially being a math teacher. I love this site, obviously, but have to admit that I find math related articles absolutely, err, what word I am I looking for, confusing?? Its a whole other discussion, but I find articles that are "controlled" by so called "experts" in their fields to be very hard to grasp and understand because they are so over the top technical. I never edit math articles but really like bios and topics I have very little knowledge about. Cheers! --Malerooster (talk) 14:56, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

"Tying wikitext into VisualEditor would be moving backwards": Why VisualEditor is fundamentally flawed.

I can't use VisualEditor at this time. It slows my computer to a crawl (and this is the computer I use for editing giant image files for WP:Featured pictures.) However, I'm also aware that the devs really want it to be the new way to edit Misplaced Pages, so, if they ever actually manage to make the thing work right, I'd like to have sufficient functionality and legacy support included that I could at least consider it. However, even suggestions that the most basic wikimarkup - '''bold''', ''italic'', ] be included was rejected by J.D. Forrester, changing the bugzilla request to "WONTFIX", a.k.a. this will never be done.

VE appears to be based solely on tests of reactions of people who had never edited Misplaced Pages before, on good computers, with good connections, on test wikis, doing a short list of commands the VE team knew VE could support in both VE and wikimarkup. When actual tests were done in the real world, they showed that VisualEditor, at least in the state it was in at the time, was a disaster for new editors.

And, remember, this was, so far as can be told, the same VisualEditor that was apparently doing so well in the artificial tests of new editors.

But that's the big problem. So far as any documentation shows, not a single attempt was made to find out what would help older editors. Even if VisualEditor improved the experience for new editors in the first five minutes, or even five days, we're playing a long game here. It takes time to learn enough to become a quality contributor, and, as such, the user experience a few months on matters as well.

And that's the problem: The WMF seems determined not to study more established editors, and what would help them. VisualEditor launched to all of En-wiki without any real functional ability to add references, a core necessity for the project, but not something one notices in the first five minutes of editing.

And now, we learn that the VE team are determined to make sure VE excludes even the most basic Wikimarkup.

I'm convinced VisualEditor is doomed, because the views of the community don't matter to the VE team. Adam Cuerden 08:21, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm afraid I have to agree with Adam's analysis. The WMF has made enormous efforts to device a plan to improve Misplaced Pages's infrastructure, nobody denies that. But all the evidence found when reading about the WMF's plans has lead me to think there's a blind spot in the way they're approaching the design of the visual editor. Every time someone in a the Foundation says how wikitext is obsolete or hard to use, I die a little death inside. The Foundation is seeing only the drawbacks of using wikitext, but they're missing all the advantages that it provides, and we're terrified that many of them will be discarded in the transition. Following a cell phone metaphor introduced by User:Whatamidoing, it's like being used to a dumbphone device with a battery that lasts several days without recharge, and suddenly being forced to use a shiny smartphone that is depleted in a few hours.

The difficulties faced by new editors are not solely because of wikitext syntax, which is terse and easy to touch-type; most problems are created by the complex layer of templates, categories, and community guidelines that one must fulfill, and those are not going away. By the time the VE is able to support all tasks that wikicode support today, it will be nearly as complex as wikitext, and much less welcoming in many ways (some complex tasks are made more discoverable by the VE, true, but also much less efficient by the new interface).

The interfaces for templates and references (the very first improvements that the community requested as indispensable) are a good first step towards what should be a tool that editors can use to the achieve the most complex tasks. But more effort needs to be placed on providing the same efficiency that a veteran can achieve by writing code directly; and the final tool should resemble how editors write code with raw text, only enhanced by (optional) user-friendly wizards. A solution for veterans should provide ways to make editing semantic code friendlier to newcomers (with autocompletion, easy discovery of features, self-documenting interfaces...) as well as quick to use by experienced editors, and this requires not completely shielding them from code by hiding all the semantics existing behind Misplaced Pages articles. How can we get the WMF to listen to these requirements, when they have a strong vision of their own that looks incompatible with them? Diego (talk) 10:08, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

The title of this section of my talk page includes a quote, but a quote from where? I think, although a good argument could persuade me otherwise, that the visual editor should always include support for double-bracket linking. The reason is that double brackets only very very very rarely could possibly mean anything else, and it's a very very fast way to do linking. I'm open to alternative perspectives, but I'd like to see a discussion of those perspectives - without a lot of hand-wringing and philosophizing about consumers and elitism and so on. :-) Let's just stay very very practical and say what we want and explain it clearly and without a lot of rhetorical flourishes. What are the best arguments against allowing double-bracket linking in the VE?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:34, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, here's another couple of quotes, from Erik Moeller:

• " Sorry, but this is not something we'll ever do, as I explained in comment 9. It's not simply a matter of prioritization - it's a matter of ensuring we can provide a user experience that's not modeled on markup, but on best user experience practices. As James said, we provide keyboard shortcuts, and will provide other user interfaces optimized for markup. But parsing markup within the visual editing context is completely off the table."
• "We're listening, but in this case we're saying no, and that decision is final. We can elaborate a bit more on the why if that helps, but parsing wikitext in VisualEditor is absolutely not going to happen. If accidental insertion of wikitext is still an issue, we should focus on other ways to mitigate that issue."

- Bug 49686 - VisualEditor: automagically convert wikitext (e.g. link) to VE-compatible elements. (that's the 'bugzilla page' Adam linked above)

So I guess we could be forgiven for thinking the

@Jimbo: The reason is that double brackets only very very very rarely could possibly mean anything else, and it's a very very fast way to do linking. You have just described the essence of wikitext, what makes it a very good way to create wiki content. That example is not an exception, ALL wiki markup achieves the same effect of being unambiguous and fast to type. There should not be arguments against double-bracket linking in the VE, because that is the most efficient possible way to insert (and maintain!) links.

A good Visual Editor would treat all the page content as a stream of text decorated with semantic tags (either inline of peripheral), with tools that allow easy discovery and auto-completion. Inserting semantic tags in articles, moving them around and transforming them through copy-paste and search-and-replace operations should be as easy in the new tools as it's easy to do in wikitext.

The main problem with the current interface is that it's based on forms and modal dialogs, and every time you need to insert semantic tags (links, infoboxes, categories...), those dialogs get in the way of adding content; these insertion tools that are less efficient than just typing. Turning the page into a 1980's style WYSIWYG editor is sub-optimal, as it hides the semantics that keep Misplaced Pages articles interlinked and classified, which should be visible in a user-friendly way, not hidden from view. WYSIWYG is good for rich-formatted text (bold, italics, sections...) but not for editing semantic tags. There should be a "semantic mode" for people who know what they're doing and want to add anything more complex than format. Here are several ways to make a semantic editor that is both efficient and user-friendly:

• Show the semantic tag of the element that has focus, without requiring the user to press any key nor open any dialog.
• Tools that facilitate insertion should be non-modal, attached to the sides of the window. This way, a novice doesn't need to remember all possible parameters, but an expert user can interleave using the tool and inserting semantic content directly.
• Copying text should retain all the semantic info attached to the part of the text being copied. (The VE developers are working on this one).
• If a complex element (table, infobox...) is composed of several tags, it should be possible to edit only parts of the structure (copy, paste or delete rows, fields)... without the need to insert data in forms.

You should try to explain Erik that the best user experience practices for editing semantic content is to make markup visible but not scary. Diego (talk) 13:07, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree very much with Adam that having support for some basic wikitext would be incredibly helpful. I love the idea of VE but the couple of features missing make it very hard for me to use. Linking is very slow and frustrating when I want to create piped links, and not being able to name my references is also frustrating when I'm switching from VE to source editing and back. That said, I'm glad to hear the devs are working on things like template parsing and special characters. Just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents here. Keilana| 13:11, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Ok, having read the bug report now, and the full response, I see that what is being suggested is that control-k (or command-k on mac) is the new double square brackets. Why is that not a valid response? At this moment, I went into an article to write some new text. (Hypothetical text.) I typed: "I really like <cmd-k>Thomas Jefferson<enter><enter> as a President." It was reasonably fast. I'd change a couple of things about the experience - first, it seems to have forced the popup dialog with the autocomplete... I think it should only do that if I hesitate for a couple of seconds, not every time. If it didn't pop up that box, but instead just let me quickly power type ahead, then cmd-k whatever enter enter is at least as fast as double brackets, no? If that's right, then yes there's a user education issue (who knows command-k? not me) and there's also some work to be done on the UI (but not philosophically difficult work, just some nice polishing).

An alternate view is that if it is philosophically ok for the 'trigger' for hyperlinking to be cmd-k, then why can't it also be bracket-bracket?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:10, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Note how you and the people from the WMF are only reviewing use cases for inserting content. Nobody seems to care for how difficult it is to modify previous links, or to copy one link several times with small tweaks at each copy. (Also, time-based interfaces like waiting for a pop-up are terrible for people with disabilities). Diego (talk) 15:27, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi, you've been one of the most helpful people in this thread, so I'm disappointed to see you speculating about what is in my mind or the minds of people at the WMF. I care very much how difficult or easy it is to modify previous links, or to copy one link several times, usability for those with disabilities, etc. Speculating on motives or objectives is not likely to lead you to a happy place. I've been away for 3 weeks and (like most of us) haven't ever really seriously tried to use the VE during development. If I'm commenting on one aspect of things, please don't jump to the conclusion that I don't care about other aspects of things.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:04, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, that should have been: "nobody seems to make it explicit how much they care" ;-) The problem is that leaving for the end the difficult part can leave us with a solution that is acceptable for the easy task of creating content, but terrible for modifying it. Diego (talk) 19:10, 26 July 2013 (UTC) (P.S. It's obvious that you and everybody at the Foundation care. My remark at the other comment was never an attempt to speculate about what is on your mind, but an expression of how things feel for people at this side without access to the more detailed strategic plan and inner workings of the development team, even when reason says that the feeling is not totally fair). Diego (talk) 19:40, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. The thing with wikimarkup is it was specifically designed to be things that were never used in language. About the only use of double brackets or more than one apostrophe that an encyclopedia might need are in articles about Wikitext itself, which makes them ideal keyboard hortcuts that maintain our identity. If the VisualEditor team wishes to include alternatives as well, such as, say, Cntrl-K, that would be one thing, but the only argument being provided is that it would be a "step backwards", which is a pointless rejection of something so successful that it made an entirely new and incredibly popular class of websites.

The WMF seems absolutely blind to its own success, and to how far Wikimarkup has spread beyond Misplaced Pages, based on its quality and ease of use. Since Misplaced Pages launched, I'm pretty sure it's fair to say it has become one of the - if not just the - best-known text-markup tools in existence. And that says a lot to its quality.

Further, offering some basic wikitext support has no drawback to the user. Wikitext was created specifically to not conflict with user activities. However, not offering the support makes VisualEditor have a very high opportunity cost to switch to. Particularly at the moment, the lack of support means that editors have to learn all new codes and shortcuts for basic functions - or be stuck into an inefficient keyboard-and-mouse interface - all whilst using an editor that still lacks a lot of basic functionality.

Quantitative data:
First of all, let's look at the most up-to-date stats:

• According to http://ee-dashboard.wmflabs.org/graphs/enwiki_ve_hourly_perc far, far more edits are made in Wikitext than in VisualEditor.
• Looking at editors themselves, http://ee-dashboard.wmflabs.org/graphs/enwiki_ve_daily_editors editors appear to be rejecting VisualEditor in favour of Wikitext by a wide margin.

These support the results of meta:Research:VisualEditor's_effect_on_newly_registered_editors/Results, "The analysis seems to consistently suggest that newcomers with VisualEditor enabled performed less work than editors using the standard wikitext editor. Figures 1, 2 & 3 suggest that (1) the average number of article edits performed, (2) the average number of productive edits, and (3) the average amount of hours spent editing by newcomers in the test condition during their first three days was substantially lower than that of newcomers in the control condition."

We can expand that to the present day using the stats we have. Looking at daily edits by newly-registered editors (newly-registered being defined as ones that registered after VE launched), there's a slight preference for Wikitext (979 VE vs. 1.01K Wikitext), but not as strong as in other groups. However - looking at the most recent stats at time of writing, 2.85 per hour for VE, vs. 4.24 for Wikitext (I presume that's thousands). That implies that the results are holding steady.

So, basically, editors are still preferring Wikitext, even the new users this was meant to attract.

VisualEditor's interface apparently attempts to sabotage the ability for users to find Wikitext editing

VisualEditor has been set as the default for all users, and the interface for VisualEditor is designed to make Wikitext editing less attractive. "Edit source" is a confusing and off-putting term, as opposed to the safe-sounding plain "Edit". Editing a section in Wikitext requires you to hover over the "edit" button and then move to Edit source. As such, if anything, one would presume that the interface would actively bias users against Wikitext at present.

Conclusion

• Not supporting basic wikimarkup in VisualEditor adds a high opportunity cost for existing editors.
• All classes of editors still prefer Wikimarkup. Older editors and IPs reject it by huge margins; a majority of new editors still reject it, although by smaller margins.
• Those using VisualEditor are less productive.
• Wikitext is designed not to interfere with other editing, making it ideal for shortcuts.
• All this despite VisualEditor being the default, and VisualEditor's interface attempting to discouage Wikitext editing.
• The only argument given, so far, for the idea that VisualEditor should not support basic Wikimarkup is that this would be a "step backwards". This is not an argument

Adam Cuerden 15:24, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

The design is indeed fundamentally flawed, due in no small part to its reliance on Parsoid and javascript. What I want is a split-screen editor, in which I can edit either in wysiwyg mode or the wikitext directly and switch between the two effortlessly. In other words, the WMF ought to have spent the time and money in developing a proper downloadable editor. Eric Corbett 15:48, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Read Diego's post above, Eric. That's basically what he describes, although he goes into more detail. It's what I think most of us want. That's largely because it makes a great deal of sense. I think the WMF are taking a huge gamble here ignoring this kind of input and I hope they have their bets covered. Perhaps you and I are just old Dinosaurs and should give way to the Facebook crowd - although I used to think wiki was so fundamentally sound it would outlast those ephemera. I think wikitext is the "magic" that built this empire, and deprecating it should only be done with a far more visible gameplan and a great deal more thought and consultation (if that's indeed what's happening - but it's starting to look that way...). We'll see. Begoon  17:10, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Don't let's forget that the dinosaurs didn't die out, they evolved into birds. So there's maybe a future for us yet. Eric Corbett 17:23, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh, apparently birds are still dinosaurs - check the talkpage. I hope you're right. I must believe you're right or I wouldn't be bashing the keys here... . Begoon  17:29, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

RfA

Whatever happened to all the talk about how you had some ideas for saving the RfX process? AutomaticStrikeout  ?  16:28, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

My ideas, which are not yet fully formed, are more about how to reform and adjust my role in the project so that I give away some of my theoretical powers (which are unused today and likely unusable without quite rightful outrage) and invest them in new community processes for decision-making that are more clear and more sane. Right now we have the problem, in my view, that we are in strange "corner solutions" where any of several competing options would be better than the current default, but because we require "consensus" (ill-defined, but often meaning 70-80% support) to change anything, a small and vocal and organized minority can block reform indefinitely, or two competing but equally sensible ideas can't either of them gain enough support to be even tested. The core idea, which I need to flesh out in my own mind because it is a big freaking deal, is that we institute a process that can be invoked rarely to bring about change but only with majority support in the community. Right now, there are lots of things that, in theory, I could do by fiat - but I won't and it wouldn't make sense. But imagine if I (upon the advice of ArbCom or a suitably large petition from the community) could call for a majority vote, and we would all agree in advance to constitutional procedures that would ensure that (a) we don't start having votes about everything all the time but (b) we can finally make some decisions that have just been dangling for years.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:48, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

• Majority as 60% seemed workable when 2/3 not possible: As I recall, in some close cases, a large group could reach a 60% majority (or 62%), when a typical two-thirds majority was often thwarted. So, perhaps a plan could call for a 60% majority up front, as not just 50%+1, and there would be fewer complaints of slanting the results of the decision. -Wikid77 (talk) 00:05, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Tables with VE

You said somewhere above that you thought it was acceptable to have left tables out of VE because they were hard. I think it's actually the worst deficiency of VE. Any examination of the hundreds of thousands of pop culture articles on Misplaced Pages will reveal that they are built around tables: tables of episodes, tables of release dates, filmographies, discographies, videographies, bibliographies, more -ographies than you can shake a stick at.

Go take a look at List of awards and nominations received by Demi Lovato, probably the poster-child article for something a new young editor is likely to go edit. Hit that edit button and ask yourself whether you would dare touch the result (please don't actually touch it with VE by the way: the results are highly unpredictable and rarely good).

Efforts by newbies to edit them can result in disasters like this edit. No editor really wanted to replace every episode description with the ♙ character.

No newbie can add the fact that a song charted in his country using VE, probably the single most common edit to pop song articles. The release of VE has saved me some time: newbies can't figure out how to even try to add a chart entry, so I don't have to spend as much of my time fixing them as I used to. That's certainly not your goal.

This thing really needs to get rolled back until it has the basic capabilities required to edit all of our articles, and that includes table editing, including tables of templates that don't meet Parsoid's definition of how we should have built templates.—Kww(talk) 16:49, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't think rolling it back is a live option; nor should it be. But we can work together, all of us, to help the Foundation prioritize what to do next. And we may want to reconsider some editorial policies which have allowed/encouraged excessively complex markup for years. For newbies, editing that page in either wikitext or VE is a nightmare. When I click 'edit' with VE (I won't save, as I take your warning seriously), it looks quite easy to edit except for code that should never have been in there in the first place, i.e. the styling attributes. But yes, I can say this: on that page, editing using VE is essentially impossible.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:53, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

No, I agree with Kww - it really should be an option. The "live" test has been done, it failed to be usable as a default editor, people are animated and willing to help. Pull it back, regroup and we'll get there. Sorry if you think that's negative, but there's lots of positive there too, if you look for it. Begoon  18:02, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

That wouldn't be my decision to make in any event, but I see the Foundation being highly responsive and iterating quickly and I think we should support and push forward with that. If show stopping problems can't be fixed for months or years then yes, I'd strongly support a campaign to get them to roll it back. But that doesn't seem to be the case. And I didn't take your comment as negative, and I do very much appreciate you being positive about it. It's very meaningful and more likely to get legitimate problems heard than the temptation some have had to yell at or denigrate the efforts of the people doing this work. :-)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:43, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Agree with Kww and Begoon. Most of the long term editors do not want to touch VE with a yard-long stick. The usage study on new editors has shown is makes the situation worse for them, or at best identical. Rolling it back would be a huge step forward, despite what it seems: it is first and foremost a way to show the community that WMF listens to them, and second it would allow more time and peace of mind to fix the software before it is released again. -- cyclopia 18:09, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Wouldn't a better way to listen be to prioritize and quickly fix serious problems? One problem we have had (for a very long time) is that widely advertised and promoted beta tests have drawn only a handful of testers and commenters (and that's much appreciated). In any event, I should emphasize: I'm not ideological on this point. I'd prefer that we hold off here on talk about rolling it back (not something that's within my range of decision making, and my excessive level of influence would mean that if I called for it, it'd be seriously considered and highly disruptive). Let's first work through the specific problems, get estimates on how long it takes to fix them, and see what the Foundation's overall timeline looks like. I think we can take a few weeks of annoyances if it means we get to where we want to be within a month or two, rather than a rollback and malaise that means it will be delayed by another year (or longer).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:43, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Rolling it back shouldn't only be considered a live option, it's the only responsible option. For what it's worth, that page and similar ones have been successfully edited by small children for a long time. Most of them could figure out what {{nom}},{{won}}, and {{lost}} meant without any help at all. None of them would have been able to create any of the templates, but that's not the point: inexperienced editors were quite capable of using them. All of the nasty and difficult parts were dealt with by experienced editors, making it easy for newbies.—Kww(talk) 18:26, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I think that's an empirical question, and I'm not convinced. Far more common would be someone (small child or not) who clicks on edit and quite rightly runs away from the whole thing. People are nice, and they don't want to break things. On the question of tables, my question is: how long will it take to get them usable? If the Foundation's answer to that is: 9 months, then yeah, let's roll it back. But if the answer is that a series of improvements are going to roll out weekly with expected full fix being done in 4 weeks, then I think we should ask them to get cracking on it. :-) --Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:43, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

The bugs related to the article I gave you a link to were known before VE's deployment. Per http://meta.wikimedia.org/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_reviews/VisualEditor-Parsoid/July_2013 basic table support is nearly a year away (currently scheduled for Q2 of 2014). The bugzillas related to even being able to display tables being created with templates are Template:Bugzilla (currently marked as low importance, unscheduled), Template:Bugzilla (normal importance, unscheduled), and Template:Bugzilla (unprioritized, unscheduled). The Foundation is at least nine months away from having a usable editor, and probably closer to 18 months. I don't know where you have gotten the impression that WMF has been "highly responsive" to editors, BTW: we asked them to turn it off until they got it fixed, and their only response has been to treat us like we are children throwing a temper tantrum. Take a look at User talk:Jdforrester (WMF)#Question, where his response to me basically translates to "go away and bother somebody else, because I don't care what you think."—Kww(talk) 19:15, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

@Kww:, in that document I believe they are saying that tables will be addressed in Q2 of the fiscal year, which is October-December as WMF's fiscal year starts in July. I agree that the mixing of fiscal quarters and calendar quarters can be confusing. Dragons flight (talk) 22:56, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

So Jan-March in real life, given the way engineering projects go. Still six to nine months after a feature critical to initial deployment should be available.—Kww(talk) 23:05, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

This is rather interesting. I tried VE when it first launched and quickly discovered that traditional wikitext was far better for me. Since an opt out was rapidly enabled, I took that and haven't spent too much time worrying about VE. I hadn't realized that something as basic as tables - which are used in hundreds of thousands of articles - are problematic to the point of being uneditable in this system. I have no idea how something so critical is left out of the release. Based on what I am reading here - especially if proper support for such major features is six months away - I think the WMF would be extremely wise to roll back. You've gotten your data, you know many of the bugs. Bring it back in house, fix the bugs, then try again. The only thing the foundation/devs are going to accomplish by continuing to try and force this down people's throats will be to firmly entrench opposition to the tool. If you bring it back in a few months once most of the bugs are fixed, you have a chance of rescuing its reputation. Otherwise, you have to consider how much damage you are willing to do to the community to force a product that simply is not ready for deployment. Resolute 19:29, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

One factor is that more and more people understand simple wikitext, as I have seen at a small MediaWiki wiki unrelated to the WMF. A few years ago, it was common to see people messing up the wiki syntax. But now it is rare to see a new user who cannot confidently edit basic wikitext. If VE was a downloadable program that lived and ran on the editor's computer, eliminating wikitext might be achievable with a reasonable result. However, while I can understand the excitement of devs facing the technical challenge of writing VE, Javascript will never be an improvement on ''italic text'' or ]. Tables are tricky, but editors should have the option to work with basic wikitext, particularly for its fast and easy copy/paste. Johnuniq (talk) 00:17, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

To be viable, VE has to be a downloadable program. Nothing else makes sense. But unfortunately the WMF made some bad choices. Eric Corbett 01:02, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Is it possible this can still be an option? That sounds very interesting and perhaps the best suggestion I have heard yet.--Amadscientist (talk) 02:35, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

It does sound like a good avenue for exploration, on the face of it. Even as an additional option, where the downloadable version could be a more 'heavyweight' affair. Begoon  02:43, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

From the sound of it, it seems Wikimedia will soon follow the same path of Wikia which mandatorily enforces the VE to all sister projects and refuse any request for local opt-out. The visualeditor of Wikia is a fiasco on a different level but the result is the same: VE users submit changes which ultimately ruined the markups or even the layout of the article itself. WMF will convoy VE regardless of all the serious shortcomings, just like Wikia:

Thanks for contacting Wikia. Disabling the visual editor is not something we are offering anymore. To disable that would be to remove a core functionality of the Wikia service. If you're encountering any bugs that you feel are hurting the editor on the wiki, or you have any suggestions for how you think it can be improved, you're welcome to send them our way and we'll make sure the Engineering Team and Product Team (respectively) have that information. Thanks, and feel free to let us know if you need anything else.

— Wikia staff,

-- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 04:11, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

On recuiting people to the VE beta

Note: "you" is used generically in this section; it does not refer to Jimbo.

I don't think the problem necessarily was the rollout to all English Misplaced Pages editors. The problem was how the rollout was handled.

1. The CentralNotice was especially poor. I believe - I can't find it now - that it did not even link people to Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor/Feedback, let alone offer any advice on what was going. And it disappeared very quickly, so any user who was inactive for a few days would not have seen it. I also think it did not explain about using "Edit source" for wikitext, but I'm less certain about that.
2. Central notice was the wrong tool for this. Sitenotice has several advantages that meant it should have been used instead:
   1. It allows users to dismiss the banner
   2. Although it can be manually turned off, if not, it keeps the banner up until dismissed, meaning users get a chance to see it even if they're away for a day or two.

It became clear in a discussion with Okeyes, here that he had no idea what the functionality of Sitenotice was (he claims a sitenotice would not be able to be dismissed, and would show to IPs as well, two functionalities sitenotice, in fact, fully supports) and he seems to be of the impression that Centralnotice banners can be dismissed, which they cannot.

And... the third point I'm going to pull out of the list, because this needs some space.

I understand your point that VisualEditor needed users to test it out, and that recruiting wasn't working. And I don't think users of Misplaced Pages would really have objected to having had VisualEditor turned on for them, so long as the sitenotice explained, at a minimum:

1. What was happening.
2. A link to clear instructions, prominently including how to use Wikitext under VisualEditor, as well as explaining the features.
3. Where to give feedback (bugzilla at WP:VE/F
4. How to opt-out

There would have been grumbling, but it'd probably have been understood. A lot of users would likely opt out, but in a large site like ours, it's likely a sufficiently sizeable percentage would at least try it out enough to give feedback, report bugs, and generally move the improvement forwards.

This was not what happened. The sitenotice was uninformative, the opt-out was intentionally disabled, forcing the community to create a gadget not under the VE team's control, and it quickly became clear the VE team was not interested in any feedback that wasn't a bug report, and, even then, many things, such as wikimarkup support in VE, had already been taken off the table before users got there.

So, let's talk about why sites provide an easy opt-out at time of launch of new features. First of all, being able to easily disable a change keeps users from resenting the change. They remain in control, if they don't like it, they don't have to use it. This is a situation that encourages a happy userbase, supportive of your project.

Now, if VisualEditor was a lot better than it was at time of launch, they might have somewhat gotten away with no opt-out. But when accidentally loading up VE caused anything short of very new computers to become slow and laggy for a quarter to half a minute, no, that was not going to work out well. Since the editor was doing that, and, in addition, also damaging articles with unwanted code, unexplained deletions and insertions, and other problems, there was no way they could have gotten away with it, and the userbase very rapidly turned against VisualEditor.

Unfortunately, by not providing an easy opt-out for so long, a secondary problem is caused for them: If you control the way users disable your proposed new code, you remain in control of turning it on again when feedback has been addressed. By not providing an opt-in, the VisualEditor instead also caused the creation of a user-gadget solely in control of the users at en-wiki.

That's a huge problem for the VE team,Gadgets are solely under the purview of en-wiki administrators, and, as such, they can't turn off the gadget without pulling major rank. Sure, they could do it, but, like the manner VE was launched, it would be a PR disaster. And most of the people who opted out are likely using the gadget, or even means not accessible to the VE team at all, such as using Adblock against VisualEditor.

Further, by forcing people to go through a lot of effort to turn the VisualEditor off... Well, basic psychology. The amount of annoyance caused by a given nuisance is, all other things being equal, proportional to the amount of work it takes to stop the thing being a nuisance. Had it been easy to turn off VE, sure, you'd have lost a proportion of your potential testers soon after launch. However, you likely didn't gain testers by stopping them. You instead turned people who likely thought, as I initially did, "This will be great for new users, but given my editing needs features A, B, and C which Visual editor likely could never have (in my case, the ability to search for filenames and a few other things:. I work a lot in WP:FPC, and regularly need to replace a number of copies of an image with a restored version of that image while maintaining the caption, size, and layout. That's not a feature it would ever be reasonable to expect something like VisualEditor to handle.) You instead only managed to make people horribly annoyed.

A clever marketing strategy would have given a date, say, two or three months in the future at which point VisualEditor would be reevaluated with community feedback, and a decision made as to whether to continue the test. It would have diffused tensions, and encouraged people to stick around, give feedback, and suggest changes.

A really clever strategy would have had a set time after which it would turn back to opt-in. That way, you could relaunch it, giving yourself a perfectly valid reason for re-enabling your improved version for all users.

But the VE team have hugely screwed things up, and every day it continues like this decreases the chance of VE ever gaining community favour. Adam Cuerden 06:24, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Expect hostilities about VE at Wikimania

The "natives are restless" and there is talk of outrage about the VE problems, to rise at Wikimania. The problems are truly very bad. I just fixed "Kensington Palace" to relink "Prince Harry of Wales" after a VE nowiki tag garbled the wikilink in a would-be simple edit yesterday (see VE edit-7037). VE should be shutdown soon. -Wikid77 (talk) 00:05, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

It does seem to be the cause of some horrible "mangling" on occasion. Sometimes it seems to be entirely VE's "fault", and sometimes it's hard to tell if the user got confused and contributed to the "error". I've come across a couple, usually involving <nowiki> - like this one, removing an infobox after a <nowiki> "event", and this one, trashing an entire section with a formatted table, where the user seems to have just been adding punctuation to an entirely different part of the article. I posted some thoughts on how this can affect workflows in this section.

One thing I have wondered, because it often seems that VE knows something is wrong, and tags the edit, is whether, rather than tagging it, it could refuse to save it, and say something like: "unable to parse that content", then open the source editor for the user to continue - but I suppose that would be even more confusing. Sadly, though, the current approach seems to often result in the user being unaware of the "damage", and repair depends on someone noticing. I hope we notice all of it. Begoon  02:28, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

If an editing function on an encyclopedia site creates hostility in you, please check your priorities.--Amadscientist (talk) 02:34, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

If hostility about a broken "editing function" seems surprising, then it is time to re-read over 30 years of studies about text-editing. It is not unusual for users to even pound the hardware when a computer text editor botches their work. Those predictions about the VisualEditor driving away potential new editors: believe them. Read about "computer rage" and search Google for the majority of users who have "hit their computers". The WMF is treading dangerous waters of computer psychology by pushing VE bugs on thousands of users. -Wikid77 03:38, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

I guess you were replying to Wikid77? I have no hostility, but some concerns. . Begoon  02:40, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh...yes. Sorry.--Amadscientist (talk) 03:31, 27 July 2013 (UTC)